The Heritage White Paper: 'Heritage Protection for the 21st Century' The central government's Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) have recently been conducting a national consultation on their proposals for reforming the national heritage management system for designated sites.  Headline proposals include:   The creation of a single register of heritage assets and a new single heritage consent system to replace the current division into listed buildings and scheduled monuments etc.; The devolution of the designation of nationally significant heritage assets from DCMS to English Heritage; The devolution of Scheduled Monument Consent from English Heritage to local planning authorities as part of a new, unified, Heritage Asset Consent system managed by the local authorities; A new statutory appeal system relating to designation decisions;  Interim protection for historic assets under consideration for designation; Merger of Conservation Area Consent (CAC) with planning permission, subject to further consultation; The creation of a new system of Heritage Partnership Agreements (HPAs) between heritage asset owners and local planning authorities and/or English Heritage; A new statutory duty for local authorities to maintain or have access to a Historic Environment Record (HER).

 

Nidderdale AONB has submitted a response to the DCMS consultation that is broadly supportive of the proposals.  We view the White Paper as "an important opportunity to rationalise and modernise a heritage protection system that has developed piecemeal over more than a century of legislative, political and philosophical change."

 

In addition to making detailed comments on the proposals contained in the White Paper, the AONB wishes to highlight the White Paper as an important opportunity to address a historic funding gap that jeopardises the delivery of historic environment expertise within AONB management teams. In summary there is no long-term funding available for the provision of historic environment posts within AONB teams.  The natural beauty of AONBs is a direct result of centuries of interaction between humans and their environment; the sustainable management of the natural beauty we are statutorily charged to conserve is therefore directly threatened if historic environment expertise is not on hand within AONB teams.  We therefore propose that English Heritage is given statutory responsibility for funding Historic Environment posts within AONBs, to match the core funding for ecology and countryside management provided by their sister agency, English Nature.    This particular funding challenge faced by AONBs is not currently considered within the White Paper, and we wish to draw attention to this significant absence.

 

Finally, the AONB's main concerns with the White Paper regard the need for adequate resources to manage the proposed changes and issues regarding the finer details of implementation.

 

The full text of our response can be found in the following document: Nidderdale AONB Consultation Response PDF40.8KB